BitGo closes NYDIG institutional trading acquisition
BitGo said it has completed the purchase of NYDIG’s institutional trading business in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at about $42.5 million. The deal adds derivatives, structured products, and capital markets services to BitGo’s offering. Around 30 NYDIG employees, along with institutional client relationships tied to the unit, will join BitGo.
The transaction is structured in two parts: $7 million in cash plus about $35.5 million in BitGo stock, with an additional $10 million cash payment tied to revenue milestones and up to $5 million in further consideration. After divesting the trading business, NYDIG will focus on power, bitcoin mining, and HPC data center operations.
Binance to launch NIULAI USDT perpetual contract
Binance Futures said it will launch a NIULAI USDT perpetual contract at 19:30 on Aug. 30, Beijing time, with leverage of up to 10x.
Macro and regulatory developments
Markets look to next week’s U.S. jobs report
PANews said this week’s price action was driven by shifting expectations for Federal Reserve policy. After remarks from Fed Chair Warsh on Friday, the U.S. dollar rose sharply in the short term and closed at 99.69, up 0.85% on the week. Gold fell 3.24% for the week, while spot silver lost 3.82%.
The key events next week are the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting on Monday; eurozone August CPI and U.S. August ISM manufacturing PMI on Tuesday; U.S. August ADP employment on Wednesday; the Fed’s Beige Book on Thursday; and U.S. August unemployment and nonfarm payrolls on Friday. The report said Friday’s U.S. August employment release will be the last jobs report before the Sept. 16 rate-setting meeting and a key test for the policy path after Warsh’s hawkish signal.
South Korea’s tighter rules hit single-stock leveraged ETFs
South Korean regulators raised the base margin requirement for single-stock leveraged ETFs from 10 million won to 30 million won starting July 31. From Aug. 19, investors were also required to complete simulated trading before placing trades. Data from the Korea Exchange showed that from July 31 to Aug. 28, retail investors in South Korea were net sellers of 1.773 trillion won, or about $1.3 billion, across 16 single-stock leveraged or inverse ETFs tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
Of that total, eight SK Hynix-related products saw net selling of 1.2415 trillion won, and eight Samsung Electronics-related products saw net selling of 531.6 billion won. Trading activity also dropped sharply. Average daily turnover for the 16 ETFs was 11.6787 trillion won before the rules took effect, but the August average fell to 1.0059 trillion won, about 8% of the earlier level.
ICBA opposes CLARITY Act treatment of stablecoin rewards
The Independent Community Bankers of America, or ICBA, opposed the CLARITY Act and called for a full ban on stablecoin rewards. ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said the "loophole" tied to stablecoin rewards must be closed completely and that there is no middle ground.
ICBA said stablecoins could pull $1.3 trillion in deposits out of the banking system and reduce local lending by $850 billion. Rebeca Romero Rainey said there is no sign that crypto would replace those deposits and recycle them into local communities. She also criticized a Council of Economic Advisers report titled "The Impact of a Stablecoin Yield Ban on Bank Lending" for downplaying banks’ concerns over deposit outflows.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15. If the bill fails to win support from at least 60 senators, it will not move to the next stage of review and could stall for the foreseeable future.
Project updates and security incidents
realtrumpcoins says it never issued or authorized any digital token
realtrumpcoins said in a statement on X that claims about Trump Coins issuing, promoting, or authorizing any digital token are "completely false" and stem from malicious third-party activity. The project said it has never authorized any digital token and will not issue, promote, or authorize any in the future. It added that it is cooperating with law enforcement and seeking accountability from those involved.
GoPlus says GOLD scam operators made more than $8.2 million
A GoPlus security alert said the scam group controlled realtrumpcoins[.]com and the @realtrumpcoins1 account, maliciously issued the GOLD token, pushed its market cap to $60 million, and then carried out a rug pull, making more than $8.2 million.
The investigation found that the developer’s initial funding came from KuCoin, while 15 other operating addresses were initially funded from Binance. GoPlus also said the group deployed another malicious token, PLATINUM. Its contract contains malicious code that can drain the full balance of any holder at any time, and users were warned not to buy it.
Cosmos Labs details EVM module security incident
Cosmos Labs released an analysis of the EVM module security incident, saying that from Aug. 20 to Aug. 25, attackers exploited a Cosmos EVM vulnerability to steal funds from multiple Cosmos chains. After MANTRA raised the first alert, the Cosmos security team coordinated with about 40 chains to assess risk and roll out mitigation measures.
Six networks were attacked. About $2.87 million in assets were bridged and sold on DEXs, while another roughly $2.85 million was sold on CEXs. The CEX accounts used by the attacker have been frozen and are awaiting investigation. Another 13 potentially affected networks completed fixes, chain halts, or other protections in time and did not report further losses.
Cosmos Labs said the bug had originally been reported through a bug bounty program on April 25. At the time, testers could not reproduce it in a production network configuration, so the team concluded it would not affect real funds and fixed it without issuing a public security notice. The company said it will strengthen triage and remediation for critical vulnerabilities, widen the reach of security communications, and work with outside experts on a broader review of security practices.
Avici says refunds are complete with an extra 10% cashback
Avici said all refunds have been fully processed and that users also received an extra 10% cashback. Card issuing partner Rain covered all refund-related costs. Avici said the incident was limited to Solana card contract balances funded through the Avici top-up flow. Standard Avici Solana and EVM wallets were not affected, and those wallets are self-custodial.
It added that EVM card balances, fiat on- and off-ramps, and token swap functions were unaffected. The related Solana contract has been upgraded, no further abnormal activity has been detected, and the team is continuing to monitor the situation.
Polygon issues urgent client upgrade notice
Polygon Labs said Polygon PoS nodes still running old Bor or Heimdall versions fell out of consensus after the Austin and Kyoto hard forks were activated and need to upgrade and catch up with the network.
Austin activated at mainnet block 91,949,700 and requires Bor v2.10.0 or later. Kyoto activated at height 51,533,000 and requires Heimdall v0.11.0 or later. Austin fixed two Bor resource exhaustion risks: L1-to-L2 bridge state sync events not being counted toward the gas cap, which could slow block processing, and an unlimited TxDependency field that could crash peer nodes.
Kyoto fixed issues including deeply nested message attacks, fee coin scanning, and checkpoint signature recovery. Both hard forks were binary-only upgrades with no state migration required, and nodes that had not forked do not need to resync. Operators on old clients were told to upgrade and, if needed, restore synchronization under Polygon’s guidance.
Ajna v2 hit by liquidation accounting manipulation attack
Decentralized lending protocol Ajna said on X that it had detected an exploit affecting Ajna v2 and was investigating unusual fund movements. It advised users to withdraw all funds, repay loans, and pause interactions with the protocol. Defimon Alerts said the incident caused about $775,000 in losses across pools including syrupUSDC, wstETH, rETH, cbETH, WBTC, WETH/USDC, and sDAI, attributing it to a liquidation accounting manipulation attack.
Funding and corporate moves
SK Telecom plans AI data center spin-off
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, said it will spin off its artificial intelligence data center, or AIDC, business into a new standalone entity called SK Horizon. The company plans to bring in 3.08 trillion won, about $2.2 billion, in outside capital.
The spin-off transaction is expected to close on Feb. 1, 2027. Global private equity firm KKR, along with a consortium including IMM Investment and Stonebridge Capital, may participate.
Views and analysis
Tether CEO pushes back on BIS criticism
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino disputed criticism of stablecoins from the Bank for International Settlements. He said stablecoins are backed 100% by liquid reserve assets such as government bonds, while tokenized bank deposits are backed by bank deposits that usually hold only 10% in liquid assets and do not carry deposit insurance protection.
Ardoino said what the BIS really fears is that stablecoins "show that the emperor has no clothes." He asked why people would keep savings in fractional-reserve products instead of fully reserved stablecoins, and what would happen to the financial system if the public came to see stablecoins as safer and started moving savings. He concluded: "We are at the ‘truth comes out’ stage."
Darkfost says STH unrealized profit is close to 15%
CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said that as bitcoin climbed to $80,000 in the current move, the average unrealized profit for short-term holders, or STH, approached 15%. Estimated cost basis is about $70,100, the highest profit level since July 2025.
According to Darkfost, that range often comes with a clear rise in profits and also makes short-term holders less stable in their positioning, with some investors likely to take profit. In that context, he said, bitcoin pausing near $80,000 is not surprising.
JackYi sees $75,500 as a possible new entry area
Liquid Capital founder JackYi said on X: "Just as expected, we got a mild pullback. If it continues to around $75,500, that will be a very good new opportunity. I still expect a rise after a small pullback."
He also wrote: "Investing and trading are the hardest things. I entered crypto in 2015 by mining BTC at low levels, later made successful investments including Quantum, and caught the manic 2017 bull market. That was completely luck, but at the time I thought it was skill, especially since I had earlier success in entrepreneurship and investing in traditional industries. I later invested in hundreds of projects, with most failing and a minority succeeding. As investment opportunities declined, I started studying trading seriously. Trading requires even more respect. You can be right nine times in a row, and the 10th failure takes you back to square one."
Arthur Hayes says more money printing could send BTC to $250,000
BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom fund head Arthur Hayes said support for the bond market promised by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would push the Federal Reserve to "keep printing money," potentially sending bitcoin to $250,000.
"Get ready, start buying," Hayes told podcast host Anthony Pompliano. He said bitcoin should "do very well" over the next few years and added: "We are not going to have a 2008-style massive credit crisis, but we are just going to keep printing money, and eventually you will see bitcoin at $250,000."
Hayes said that if markets do not move the way Bessent wants and keep testing him, more money printing will follow. He added that this could end in a move similar to what former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did by exhausting the Fed’s reverse repo tool and injecting $2.4 trillion in liquidity. This week, reports also said Bessent had indicated the Treasury could use nearly $1 trillion from the Treasury General Account, or TGA, to fund bond purchases.
Jiang Zhuoer says BTC faces its first real test of the rally
B.TOP mining pool founder Jiang Zhuoer said bitcoin ETFs turned to net outflows on Friday, ending a nine-day streak of inflows. He said hawkish signals from Fed Chair Warsh mean BTC is facing the first real test since the rally began. Jiang also said he sold 50% of his spot ETH holdings during Friday’s decline.
BIS chief says stablecoins are not fit for trusted payments at scale
BIS General Manager Pablo Hernandez de Cos said at the Jackson Hole annual gathering of central bankers that stablecoins do not have the capacity to serve as a trusted means of payment at scale and that tokenized deposits are better positioned to make use of new technology.
de Cos listed several concerns around stablecoins: higher bank funding costs that could leave ordinary borrowers paying more, disruption to the "singleness" of money, a lack of true interoperability across platforms, difficulty applying anti-money-laundering controls consistently, and the risk that widespread dollar stablecoin use could erode the monetary sovereignty of non-U.S. jurisdictions.
He also noted that Treasury Secretary Bessent had previously backed stablecoins, saying they could reinforce the dollar’s reserve currency role and create trillions of dollars in demand for Treasuries. de Cos said the two tools can coexist, but tokenized deposits should handle everyday payments while stablecoins should serve more specialized roles.
On-chain and market data
Darkfost says BTC realized cap rose by more than $4.6 billion in a week
CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said bitcoin’s weekly realized capitalization has kept rising, increasing by more than $4.6 billion in one week. He said that points to fresh money entering the market and supporting the current BTC advance.
He added that this is not the only explanation. Some investors who bought at higher prices may also have capitulated and sold, creating new UTXOs at lower realized prices. Even so, given bitcoin’s trend, demand has exceeded those sellers. Darkfost said the pattern resembles the previous bear market cycle. While this is the strongest weekly increase since the bear market began, the overall move remains moderate, with the 30-day average rate of change at just 0.4%, so it still needs confirmation.
Robinhood DEX posts $702 million in daily volume
Data showed Robinhood DEX recorded $702 million in daily trading volume, the second-highest level on record.
NIULAI meme coin hits a new record market cap
According to GMGN data, the BSC-based meme coin NIULAI briefly pushed past a $100 million market cap and reached a record high of $127.8 million. It was later quoted at $88.33 million, up 57.54% over 24 hours.
Whale buys 244,000 HYPE in 10 hours
Data showed that one whale bought 244,000 HYPE over the past 10 hours, worth more than $20 million.
Stellar tokenized RWA passes $3 billion
A report from oracle provider RedStone said tokenized RWA assets on Stellar topped $3 billion in July, up sharply from $785 million in January, while total DeFi value locked on the chain stood at only $213 million. Lending protocol Blend held $127 million, and pools accepting RWA as collateral had only a little more than $2 million, showing issuance has moved ahead of on-chain usability.
The growth was mainly driven by four products: the Amundi and Spiko overnight swap funds at $713 million, the Spiko T-Bill fund at $536 million, Ondo USDY at more than $533 million, and VuMe Bond 2030 at $500 million. RedStone said the settlement cycle for RWAs does not match a 24/7 on-chain lending market, and pricing remains the main bottleneck. Stellar already has 55 SEP-40 price feeds from RedStone. The report also said DTCC plans to bring its $114 trillion in assets under custody to Stellar in 2027.
Weekly trading volume on South Korea’s top five crypto exchanges jumps 188%
South Korea’s five biggest crypto exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Digital X, and Gopax — posted combined trading volume of about 31.1 trillion won from Aug. 21 to Aug. 28, up 188% from the previous week. It was the first time since October 2025 that the total topped 30 trillion won.
Before that, volume had fallen from 15.4 trillion won in mid-June to 7.6 trillion won in early August, then recovered to 10.8 trillion won in mid-August before surging over the past week. By market share, Upbit remained first at 59.61%, down 2.62 percentage points from the previous period. Bithumb held 33.11%, down 0.13 percentage points. Digital X, formerly Korbit, rose 3.48 percentage points to 4.21%, overtaking Coinone at 3.05% and moving into third place. It was the first time in 20 weeks that Digital X moved above 4.21%. Gopax accounted for 0.02%.